


between friends (and the occasional lover)

by sepulchralsymphonies



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Dwalin Is A Softie, Dwalin is a Good Friend, Fluff and Crack, Fluff and Humor, Humor, M/M, Thorin Is an Idiot, dwalin is the best friend anyone could have, focusses on friendships a lot!!!, this is a crackfic im not sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-08
Updated: 2020-05-08
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:40:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24079906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sepulchralsymphonies/pseuds/sepulchralsymphonies
Summary: “So,” Thorin begins, opening his big fat mouth, and then promptly shuts it. It’s a good look on him. “I take it you have a fair idea how I feel about Master Baggins.”(In which Dwalin is sent to the Shire with a marriage proposal, Thorin is a little shit and Bilbo just wants to stay holed up in his study.)
Relationships: Bilbo Baggins & Dwalin, Bilbo Baggins/Thorin Oakenshield, Dwalin & Thorin Oakenshield
Comments: 47
Kudos: 302





	between friends (and the occasional lover)

**Author's Note:**

> (people do not appreciate dwalin much, which is an absolute shame and something i hope to correct this time around.)

Dwalin likes to believe he’s seen his fair share of bullshit in life.

He is a Dwarf of Erebor, after all, not to mention a surviving member of the godforsaken Company that trekked their miserable way across the entirety of Middle Earth on what could very well have been described by a sane person as a suicide mission in itself. He was naught but a mere guard barely out of his adolescence and stumbling his way into adulthood, knobbly kneed and wide-eyed and an absolute pain in the arse overall—the way youngsters all over the world are when they think they know everything there is to know but they just get in everyone’s way afterwards—posted at the perimeters on duty when Smaug had arrived with fury and flame, and laid waste to what had once been the very seat and testament of Dwarven prosperity in Middle Earth.

Dwalin remembers the deep-rooted terror firsthand; the sheer enormity of the destruction of his beloved city, his _home_ spread out before him like a cruel joke, one to be written in the pages of history forevermore. He remembers the wandering, the gnawing of hunger on already teetering limbs that twinged in the throes of soreness, the scouting ahead and the shivering and the digging and the mass graves, and the searching and the begging and the pleading. He remembers the start of a new life, a new dawn, a new mountain to call home; a new battle, a new loss; a new epithet, a new _king_.

He remembers the faintest flickers of hope decades and decades later, the late night visit from a clearly frazzled Thorin as he all but toppled inside his dearest friend’s room, a stray lock of hair tangling with his tongue as he spluttered—so Dìsoriented he was with faraway visions of victory, saying over and over again, _we can go, we can go, Dwalin, we can get her back now_. He remembers the anxious trepidation, the days leading up to their departure, the mandatory smacks upside the head to the royalty, regardless of their age or status every time they were being stupid—which, in all honesty, was almost all the time.

Dwalin remembers the rolling green hills of the Shire as they shouldered their way into view, messy honeyed hair with a hilarious cowlick up the side of a nervously bobbing head peering out from behind a vivid green door. He remembers the fussing and the whining and the complaining, the start of tentative jokes once they’d spent too long on the road to worry about shoddy things like propriety or personal dignity; the bravery, the loyalty, the indignant squawking, the chiming laughter, the slow unfurling of a strange little creature who managed to worm his way into all of their hearts, one by one.

Of course, the Hobbit had wormed his way into some hearts sooner than others, and standing at the door leading to His Majesty’s study, Dwalin has a sinking suspicion that this visit would prove just that.

“Oh, Dwalin,” Thorin says, glancing up briefly from where he is poring over a thick bundle of sheets on his desk. He waves a hand dismissively towards the empty chairs. “Take a seat, won’t you.”

Dwalin grunts, mentally whooping at the chance to rest his throbbing knees. The new recruits for training either had an ungodly lot of vigour in them, or he was truly beginning to age, yet let it never be said that Dwalin was nothing but a supremely optimistic and most enthusiastic teacher nonetheless, and so he muttered something about _those damn kids_ and sat back down.

“What’s got your knickers in a knot today?” He asks, subtly bending forward on his aching joints, kneading his palms into the flesh above his knees.

Thorin rolls his eyes, throwing down the papers none too gently onto the polished surface of his cluttered desk. “It’s a report on agrarian yields over spring and the proposed clauses for a settlement with Dale on grain taxes, _and_ the potential methods to boost it in mutual benefits for both kingdoms for summer.” He looks to him with dead, lifeless eyes, face crumpled in miserable frustration. “I don’t know what any of it means, Dwalin.”

Dwalin snorts. “You’re a warrior, not a farmer,” he says, resting comfortably against the high backed chair and trying not to imagine the stuffy nobles and dignitaries who might have dented the upholstery with all the sticks up their arses that they walked around their halls with all the time. “Ask Balin for help.”

“I’m afraid that’s not an option, seeing how your brother was the one to hand me these and then all but scuttle out the door,” Thorin scowls, tapping thoughtfully at his chin. “I could seek out Ori, I suppose.”

Dwalin shakes his head. “Don’t burden the poor lad; he barely has any free time now as it is. It wouldn’t do to toss him more.”

Thorin drops his head back against his chair, letting out a long-drawn groan. It looks terribly pathetic, and Dwalin grins to himself, resisting the urge to reach out and flick his forehead right where the edge of his crown meets his brow. “Why are _dwarves_ so terrible at everything related to cultivation?”

He shrugs, a wolfish grin etched across his face. “Bet you miss a certain plant-loving halfling now, eh?”

To his utter surprise, Thorin doesn’t react in any of his expected ways (whining like a besotted damsel, throwing a paperweight at his head, sighing with an obnoxiously lovelorn look upon his face, leaning over the table and throttling him). Instead, he _nods_.

“Yes, actually,” he says, and clears his throat. “That’s part of the reason why I wanted to talk to you.”

The Captain of the Royal Guard frowns immediately. “What?” he asks.

Thorin looks nervous, appearing to be at war with himself over something. He fidgets in place for a long moment, absentmindedly picking at the edge of the sleeves of his tunic—a ridiculously regal thing with heavy embroidery in gold down the sides, which means he’s back from a council meeting with those nasally pompous pricks—and Dwalin arches a brow. Something seems dreadfully, ominously wrong here. “ _Thorin_.”

“So,” Thorin begins, opening his big fat mouth, and then promptly shuts it. It’s a good look on him. “I take it you have a fair idea how I feel about Master Baggins.”

Dwalin snickers. “ _Master Baggins_ ,” he parrots, before laughing loudly. “Shut up, everyone knows you’ve been mooning over him since we first met him.”

Thorin looks curious. “Since I first met him?”

“Your bedroll was always next to mine,” Dwalin points out, then raises his voice in a shrill and echoing rendition of the sounds that had marred—and, truth be told, haunted—his sleep for months on end, making sure to place a hand on his chest and one on his forehead in a dainty posture. “ _Oh Bilbo, oh Bilbo-o_!”

Thorin glares at him for a long moment. “I do _not_ sound like that when I come,” he finally says.

Dwalin shudders, holding up both hands in a clear sign of surrender. “Absolutely, whatever you say, I will be glad to take your word for it,” he concedes, feeling another tremor of disgust rip down his spine. “I’m just surprised you didn’t wake up the entire Company wanking off, but you certainly scarred about the half of us that were placed near you.”

Thorin shrugs. “Well, he wasn’t one of them either way.”

“Oh, _yes_ ,” Dwalin says dryly. “What a complete waste.”

His friend glares murderously at him. “Will you let me finish?”

“Isn’t that a question you should be asking Bilbo?” Dwalin says, leering. Thorin flings a paperweight at him.

“Anyway,” Thorin says, shooting him an annoyed look when Dwalin begins to toss the ball of glass up in the air and fluidly catching it with a mocking grin plastered over his face, “as I was saying, you have a fair idea of how I feel about Bilbo.”

“Ooh, it’s _Bilbo_ now, is it?” Dwalin asks, chuckling when Thorin makes a rude gesture at him. He is certain Dìs would flay him alive if she caught him doing that around her sons, but the boys have always gazed at their uncle with starry-eyes, and it was inevitable, really, that they would pick it up soon enough (although, he might have hoped that Fili had a _little_ more tact than to ask his brother to choke on himself in the middle of a meeting with emissaries from the Iron Hills). “But yes, I do know how you feel about him.”

“Well, all things considered,” Thorin hedges carefully, looking so green around the gills that his friend is almost tempted to offer him a ceremonial vase from the nearby table to heave into. It’s a stuffy old thing; probably dating back to the days of Daìn I, but as long as Thorin doesn’t throw up on him, he doesn’t particularly care. “I suppose it’s time to take things to the next level.” 

Dwalin frowns. “Elaborate on that, please.”

Thorin sighs, his shoulders bunching in on themselves. “I want to court him,” he grits out, then scowls at the quill on his desk like it has personally offended him, “officially.”

“Wait a minute,” Dwalin questions, brows pulled together in confusion. “Were you not doing that already?”

“What? No, _no_ , of course not,” Thorin shakes his head with a sort of frenzied energy that reminds him of Kili whenever he woke them up in the middle of the night with a passionate tirade on the benefits of allowing the princes free reign over the kingdom for a week each month—for _practice_ , he claimed—, and then exhales loudly. “I never worked up the courage to ask him, and before I knew it, he was packing up with all intentions of going back home.”

“He was here for _months_!” Dwalin cries in exasperation, almost slamming his palms onto the table with murderous intent. “He stayed the entire winter, he made sure all three of you recovered, he smoothed over diplomatic relations with the elves _and_ with Dale, he oversaw the reopening of the mines in the west, he literally lived with us the entire time, and you’re telling me you _never_ asked him out?”

“That’s _exactly_ why I couldn’t!” Thorin retaliates, his face red and looking like he is about to pop a vein in his forehead from all the underlying stress. “What would I ever say? _Hello there, strange little creature without whom we would have been lying dead in a ditch on the other side of the Misty Mountains and who has practically re-established this kingdom while my nephews and I were at our deathbeds, what do you think about my proposal to court you and make you Consort of Erebor?_ ”

Both of them glare at each other.

“Well,” Dwalin drawls, after a long pause. “You could always start by not calling him a strange little creature.”

“ _See_?” Thorin exclaims, throwing his hands in the air. “This is why I didn’t talk to him in the first place.”

Dwalin shakes his head. “I see your point. Bilbo would have shattered your kneecaps with a red-hot poker if you proposed to him that way.”

“I wouldn’t have blamed him,” Thorin offers helpfully, as if he had hoped Dwalin would somehow think of defending him in such a situation.

“Yes, Thorin, thank you,” Dwalin replies, suppressing a snort. “I wouldn’t have blamed him, either.”

“ _Anyway_ ,” Thorin enunciates, glaring at him as if Dwalin was the one who had waited five months to court someone he was tripping over for from the minute they had opened the oddly-shaped door to their home for him, “I think I have waited long enough, and now, I wish to court him.” He tilted his head to the side. “And marry him, of course, as soon as possible.”

“Provided he wants to marry _you_ ,” Dwalin suggests, pointing a finger in scandalized accusation at his king. “Have you ever even talked to him?”

“About what?” Thorin asks, brows drawn in confusion.

“ _This_ ,” Dwalin answers, throwing his hands widely in the space between them. Thorin, daft old fool that he is, glances down at his desk as if expecting to see whatever object his friend was gesturing towards. “ _This_ , whatever this is. Your feelings.”

Thorin’s face twists in disgust. “ _Feelings_?” he repeats, the word sitting on his tongue like a particularly nasty bit of the Elvish medicine he had been forced to take for months after the battle. Of course, it had been imperative to make sure his innards didn’t fumble out in a rather disturbing resemblance of spilled soup across the floor of the courtrooms, so Dwalin hadn’t really hesitated in telling him to not act like a dramatic little dwarfling every opportunity he got and suck it up like a big boy. “Why do I need to talk to him about my _feelings_?”

Dwalin inhales deeply and prays for patience. He hopes the gods aren’t too busy and accidentally ignore his rather urgent request. “Because you want to marry him and make him the Royal Consort of Erebor?”

Thorin nods, still looking confused. “Yes?”

Dwalin slumps back against the chair and drops his head into his hands. He thinks he is going to cry. The heat behind his eyes is definitely impending tears, not sheer fury.

“ _Oh_ ,” Thorin breathes somewhere ahead of him, and the slow croon of long-due realization gives him enough hope to peer through his fingers. “ _Oh_ , you mean, tell him that I’m in love with him. Oh, _that_.”

“Yes, Thorin, _that_ ,” Dwalin sighs, and lets his hands fall into his lap. “Have you talked to him? Written to him? Made him aware in any way that the King whose life he has saved over and over again wants to bind him in holy matrimony?”

Thorin shrugs, a little too loosely to be considered normal in the head. He can see where Fili and Kili get it from. “No, but does it matter? I would do anything for him; he should know that by now. Marrying him is the only natural next step.”

“Uh, no,” Dwalin tries again, dreading the day either one of the boys fell head-over-heels for someone. _No_ , he thinks emphatically, that is a headache Dìs would have to look after on her own, and he will _not_ be stepping in, lifelong obligations to the Durins be damned. “It may seem natural to you and the rest of Erebor, but I really don’t think Bilbo knows you love him so. Showing up at his doorstep with a marriage proposal is not the way to go about this, unless you want him to pass out again.”

Thorin blinks. “I’m not showing up unannounced at his doorstep with a marriage proposal. I haven’t heard from him in months.”

Dwalin scowls, sorely tempted to shove an axe into his friend’s skull, but would it even make a difference, he thinks to himself. “Do you even know when he’s coming back to Erebor, then? Do you honestly think you can wait that long?”

“Don’t be absurd,” Thorin grumbles with a snort, rolling his eyes. “I’m not that patient.”

“Thank the heavens,” he sighs, reaching up to pinch the bridge of his nose. “And here I thought you were—”

“ _You’re_ going to show up unannounced at his doorstep with a marriage proposal,” Thorin says.

“What,” Dwalin says.

“Yes,” Thorin nods decisively, and turns away.

“No, back up a little,” Dwalin asks, his voice faint, “ _what_?”

“Oh, think about it,” Thorin urges him, whirling around to face him with the sort of manic grin that would have sent lesser men running for the hills; Dwalin merely swallows nervously and holds his gaze. “You’ll knock loudly, he’ll open his stupid round door looking so adorable in that confused way of his, and he will fumble with his dressing gown, and he’ll politely ask you what in the blazes it is that you’re doing there, and you can tell him that his dear friend, the King of Erebor and direct descendent of Durin—” Here, he stops and tips his head with an obnoxiously self-assured smile, “—that’s me, by the way, sends his regards and wants to marry him and make him the Royal Consort of the seventh Dwarven kingdom on Middle Earth.” He leans back with a contented exhale, crossing his arms over his chest. “Mahal, it will be _so_ romantic.”

“Romantic?” Dwalin repeats, and his voice cracks a little. “ _Romantic_?”

“I say it’s a perfectly sound plan,” Thorin muses, and his expression morphs into the lovesickness that has, in the past, made Dwalin grab a hold of his shoulders and wrangle him into consciousness. If they were facing down murderous eight-eyed brutes in an evil-infested forest, he would very much appreciate it if their King was not staring off at Bilbo with his mouth agape and his sword hanging limp at his side, thank you very much. “I’ll sweep him off his feet, and he won’t even know I’m there.”

“That’s because you won’t be there,” Dwalin points out, “and you’re leaving me on my own to do all the sweeping, and I’m afraid I have never considered doing that to our burglar.”

“Of course!” Thorin cries, looking far too pleased for his own good. “There is nothing like an unprecedented display of affection to nudge things into motion.”

“Nudge?” Dwalin asks, and in a corner of his mind, he recognizes that he has reverted into that strange (and frankly, quite embarrassing) state of mind in which he skips denial altogether and goes into the category of willfully impaired auditory skills. “ _Nudge_? Thorin, this is like kicking him in the face with the brunt of your emotions. You haven’t even properly courted him yet.”

“No one’s kicking anyone,” Thorin says firmly, and then smiles. “Besides, I don’t see a pressing need for courting. I love him dearly and I will continue to do so until the end of my days. This will be his choice entirely, and you will accompany him back, should he choose to agree.”

“No, no, _no_ , this won’t do,” Dwalin moans, shaking his head vigorously. “Why do _I_ have to be the one who goes to the Shire? What if he starts asking questions? What will I do then?”

Thorin leans back, an amused grin tugging at his mouth. “Well then, you answer his questions. Who better to defend himself on the long road than my fiercest warrior, and who better to explain my feelings to the love of my life but my dearest friend?”

Dwalin flings the paperweight back at him. Thorin catches it right before it would have nailed him in the face. What a pity, Dwalin thinks. “If I was your dearest friend, you wouldn’t be forcing me to go. Do you realize I could very possibly jeopardize the tentative friendship I’ve forged with him on this little run of yours?”

“Bilbo adores you and he always has, don’t you start worrying about that,” Thorin says with a bemused snort. His face softens then, and he sighs. “Of course I would never force you to go; I just hoped you would agree. You know how terribly I love him, so I must admit I was rather banking on the idea that since I cannot leave Erebor at a crucial time like this, the possibility of him accepting my proposal would seem brighter to me if I knew you were the one carrying the suit to him.”

The silence stretches between them, long and loaded.

Finally, Dwalin grunts. “I should cave in your head with a mace for that.”

Thorin grins, and he seriously contemplates the option at the sight of that annoying and arrogant look. “Pack your bags, you sentimental old flower. You’re going to meet a friend.”

*

(In the end, no matter how steadfastly miserable, Dwalin was glad to be on the way.

He ended up inquiring about caravans travelling to the west, and discovered one that was bound for Bree and leaving in a week’s time. That gave him plenty of opportunity to wrap up all loose ends—he told Balin of his plans and his brother graciously nodded along (though the twinkle in his eyes and the twitching of his beard gave away his amusement); he talked to his deputies and made sure they kept the training of the recruits ongoing while easing them into the practice of rotations and allotments; he packed his bags and his axes and his pipeweed and sufficient coins for the road; he sorted out his quarters, sat on the edge of his bed and wondered what kind of idiocy Thorin had dragged him into this time.

He wasn’t worried about Bilbo’s response to the proposal in the slightest. Whether he liked it or not, Dwalin had been an unwilling spectator to their blossoming romance on the journey; being Thorin’s closest friend had made him privy to whatever affectionate (and occasionally, indecent) thoughts had begun to take root in his head over time. He had seen how taken their King was with the burglar from the moment he walked into Bag-End, singing lost songs with a brooding face and making sure his voice was pitched low enough to carry to the room where the Hobbit had retired after very vocally venting his displeasure at the offer. Dwalin was certainly all about honour and respect and the reclamation of their homeland—deeply unsettling songs too, but the furtive glances Thorin had thrown over to the door while he adjusted his hair over his shoulders had been too funny to overlook.

Of course, things had only spiraled spectacularly from there, because Thorin could never be trusted to experience emotions and channel them in a positive manner that wouldn’t come off as derogatory to the recipient. They had all grown used to it, and they knew never to take his words to heart, because Mahal knew how much weight Thorin carried on his shoulders already to worry about his crippling ineptitude in conversational skills—but to strangers, it was a different matter altogether. Bilbo had looked outraged at the first few remarks on his incompetence that Thorin threw his way after days of steadfastly ignoring his presence, but his fury had melted away with every barbed comment until he wore nothing on his face but a crestfallen expression each time the King barked orders or demeaning statements at him.

Dwalin never admitted it, but it had broken his heart seeing the little Hobbit that way, sitting a little way off from the campfire every night—his eyes downcast, his shoulders hunched, the flames flickering over downturned planes of his gentle face.

Then the senile old coot named Radagast had swept into their midst (quite literally, considering how he was in a sled pulled by monstrously large _rabbits_ , of all things on this sweet earth), and then they’d been ushered along to Rivendell where he and Balin were too busy trying not to let any member of their Company (royalty included) stab one of the Elves to focus on Bilbo and his well-being anymore. They’d been caught in a glorious shit-storm next, with the weather and the stone giants and the goblins and their goddamned caves, and Dwalin had completely lost sight of their burglar until they stopped down the mountain, panting and wheezing for breath—scratched and bedraggled, but not too worse for wear—, and the Wizard had demanded with no short sense of urgent desperation, where on earth was mister Bilbo Baggins.

Thorin’s passionate little diatribe—fuelled more by a rampant terror he was clearly struggling to hide, stubbornly forcing himself and everyone else to believe that it was certain that the Hobbit had left them rather than acknowledging that he may have come to harm and none of them bloody _noticed_ —had been interrupted by Bilbo himself, emerging from behind a tree and almost sending Dwalin into an early grave with his sudden and cheery greeting. He had finally spoken then, soft and polite and achingly genuine in response to his friend’s disbelieving query of why he came back, and it would have taken only a fool as blind as a bat to miss the exact moment that Thorin realized he was in love.

As Dwalin had always known with a sinking suspicion, their little venture had been doomed from the start, and what better way for the gods to remind them but to send after them the Pale Orc himself, that venomous little maggot whose oath to crush the line of Durin fell directly in conflict with Dwalin’s own solemn swear to protect them with his life? But _of course_ they had been hopelessly outnumbered, and _of course_ they climbed onto a flimsy excuse for a tree that almost pitched them into the valley, and _of course_ Thorin chose that exact moment to be a hero—almost as if he had a sixth sense for knowing what Dwalin and his own common sense would have suggested, and then ignoring that completely. And _of course_ he ended up becoming a chew toy for Azog’s warg, and _of course_ Bilbo ran to stand in front of him while waving about a tiny sword he didn’t even know how to properly hold yet, ashen with fear but determined to save him even if it meant having his own head lopped off his trembling shoulders.

In hindsight, Dwalin really shouldn’t have been all that surprised if the person Thorin fell in love with lacked the same sense of self-preservation that the gods had never graced their King with.

But Dwalin was grateful, so unbelievably grateful that he kneeled in front of the Hobbit later and bowed his head, insistent on not letting his tears show. But Bilbo, perceptive little shit that he’s always been, had knelt down next to him and embraced him and said nothing, and that was that.

Suddenly, there was a new person Dwalin was willing to die for, bound by nothing but sheer affection and the warmth of friendship and the ease of an unspoken solidarity. And if he enjoyed watching Thorin scowl at them whenever he ruffled Bilbo’s hair or laughed with him about his truly awful relatives, well. He had always been a person to enjoy life’s little pleasures, he claimed.

Time and time again, Bilbo had proved just how incredible he was, how utterly irreplaceable; how foolish they had all been to overlook him the way they did in the beginning. Being Thorin’s oldest friend, Dwalin had taken upon himself the responsibility to make sure he talked to the Hobbit, that slowly but surely, he would learn how to accept and work on his feelings for Bilbo. Dwalin wouldn’t call himself a matchmaker, not on point of death, but he could call himself a furtherer; an accomplice, perhaps; a supportive brother. During their stay at the shapeshifter’s home, after their escape from Mirkwood, while they rested in Laketown—Dwalin had made sure to hold a conversation with Bilbo and then gently steer it in a direction where Thorin could step in from where he was lurking in the background and shamelessly listening in. And he did, although it did take him a lot of pointed glares and discreet coughing to take the hint.

Then they had finally reached Erebor, and Dwalin had almost socked Thorin in the jaw when he claimed to not risk the outcome of their entire quest by saving Bilbo’s life. As it turned out, Bilbo didn’t really need saving, not when the dragon turned its hideous eyes on all of them and attempted to turn them to toast. There had been fire and a hatred that burned so thick on both sides it was almost impossible to see through the smoke, but then Smaug had turned to Laketown instead, and Dwalin felt sick to his stomach when he saw the beast lay waste to the same town that had sheltered them when they had turned up there first—tired and broken, their pride too in tatters to hesitate before asking for help.

When the sickness engulfed Thorin, when he refused to go to their aid, Dwalin had known there was nothing he could do to wrench him free from its hold. Because that was the bane of familiarity, wasn’t it, the curse of a friendship so long they could be called brothers in all but blood? Thorin knew exactly what he would say, what Balin would say; he knew what they would implore for, and he shot down the ideas before the words were finished coming from their mouths. Dwalin had stood beneath him, his brother by his side, when they had spent all their lives standing right by him, watching Thorin roar at them, “ _Am I not the king_?” and realizing that this was what Thorin saw himself as now—the King of Erebor, supreme ruler, an unstoppable and ruthless force, and all of them his subjects, nothing more.

But he had let Bilbo stand next to him on the dais; he had slipped a mithril shirt worth more than all the gold in the world over his head; he had smiled at him, and Dwalin had allowed himself to hope.

Because with Bilbo there, there was always hope.

Dwalin could count on one hand the number of times he had been absolutely terrified in all his life, and watching Thorin dangle Bilbo over the parapets was certainly one of them. He had been horrified, seized by a fear so profound it locked his limbs and glued his mouth shut, made the weapons weighing down in his hands so heavy he couldn’t toss them to the side to get to them in time. _This is the end_ , Dwalin had thought to himself as he watched Thorin press a strangely pliant Bilbo into the stone with all intentions of throttling him, with his snarling mouth and his poisonous words and his heavy crown, _we cannot save him, we cannot save Thorin anymore_. Bilbo had coughed once when Thorin released him, a broken little sound, and it pierced his heart with a keening echo.

Then the battle had arrived, and the cloud had lifted from Thorin’s eyes, but he had fallen to the earth, and there was nothing Dwalin could do.

He had found Bilbo sitting outside the tent where the boys were resting, too deep in the blissful sleep from Oin’s potions to feel the pain of shattered bones and gaping wounds. He had looked up when Dwalin approached, blood matting the side of his face and leaving his soft hair in terrible clumps, when he had ruffled it so many times before and found them like spun silk. Bilbo had said nothing, but he was trembling, shaking like a leaf caught in the winds of autumn, none of the shivering from the cuts littering his blank face or the wounds that had sliced through his clothes and left little pools of blood along the cotton, and Dwalin had found himself saying, “Thranduil is tending to him, and he will live.”

Bilbo had crumpled in on himself, sliding down from his perch on an upturned crate, and started to cry.

Gandalf had found them like that in the morning, Bilbo passed out from sheer exhaustion against Dwalin’s shoulder and Dwalin himself with his broken arm gingerly wrapped around his devastatingly fragile frame, both of them blood soaked and pale, seeking the comfort of life when they were surrounded by lifeless corpses.

It had been nothing short of a wonder, walking in with Bilbo towards the tent when Thranduil had first sent word that Thorin was awake, the Elvenking merely dropping his head in a bow when the two of them had limped past him. “ _Forgive me_ ,” Thorin had chanted like a prayer, over and over again the moment he caught sight of them, the bloody bandages wrapped across his torso heaving and starting to soak through with each rattling breath he drew past cracked lips, “forgive me, _please_ , please forgive me,” and Bilbo had done nothing but shake his head and smile as he pushed Thorin’s hair off his forehead, and whispered, “There is nothing to forgive.”

And that was it.

Dwalin may have complained, and groused Thorin’s request, and rolled his eyes every time his friend tried to compare Bilbo’s eyes to precious gemstones at the dinner table –much to the bemusement of Dìs and to the gagging of her sons—but he was pleased. He was so dearly pleased, and he thanked the gods every day for Bilbo Baggins. Here was a Hobbit who looked small and frail, who no longer possessed the soft middle and supple flesh that he had in the beginning of their journey, but a lithe yet deceptively strong physique that he had gained in well over a year of constant toil. Here was a Hobbit who was cunning and witty, whose tongue could lash the shrewdest of diplomats into submission, whose kind words could move even the most stoic of hearts. Here was a Hobbit who had become a warrior, a confidante, a friend; who deserved all the happiness in the world because he brought all that happiness to all of them, to Thorin, to Erebor herself.

So yes, Dwalin was mighty glad to be on the journey, no matter how much he feigned annoyance. Now that Thorin wanted to marry him and make him the Royal Consort of the very kingdom he had helped re-establish, to send Dwalin to bring him back to the place all of them called home solely because of him, it was an honour in itself.

_Welcome to the family_ , Dwalin would tell Bilbo when he met him again. _Welcome home_.)

*

Dwalin says nothing of that sort when Bilbo opens the door.

In his defence, the whispers that started the moment he nudged his steed into the cozy little lanes of Hobbiton were deeply unsettling. Now, Dwalin is a seasoned warrior. He’s seen battles, he’s killed foes, he’s had his organs practically handed to him on a plate with all the wounds he’s taken, but he’s fine. He has survived all of that because he’s grown up in training rings and hard-packed earth and the comfortable looming of familiar mountains overhead. He’s used to brash but honest remarks, quick trading of opinions; hell, with all the time he’s spent with the royal family, he knows and appreciates the necessity of precise bluntness, employs it with happiness.

But this, this whispering and pointing and unabashed _ogling_ , this is unnerving him. Dwarves are hardy creatures, with their thick hides and confident gaits and loud voices. Hobbits are a different matter altogether—their frilly clothes, and huddled conversations that hushed when he moved past, and wide eyes are beginning to scare him in a way he never expected. He’s suddenly glad their entire Company turned up at Bag-End in the cover of night.

Dwalin raises his fist and knocks on the door, rapping twice—smartly and sharply. He hears the sound carry through the door and into the house set into the heart of the earth itself, and waits. His pony lifts her head and gazes cleverly at him from where he’s left her tethered at the front of the garden. He hopes Bilbo isn’t overly attached to those scraggly looking plants by the gate.

A small gaggle of Hobbit lasses, barely into adulthood—if he’s any judge of that—pause a little way off down the road, leaning their heads close together and muttering fervently. Their parasols twirl over their heads in a dizzying riot of colour, and a high pitched giggle pierces through the air and reaches his ears. He winces.

When a minute passes and the master of Bag-End makes no move to open the door, Dwalin knocks again, a little desperately this time. He thinks the girls have moved closer. “Bilbo?”

The door blessedly, finally swings open, and there stands their burglar, dressed prim and proper in a shirt and trousers, his hair still the same honeyed bronze that Dwalin so distinctly remembers. There’s a smudge of ink on his nose, like war paint, that makes him look so adorably rumpled that Dwalin has to resist the urge to reach out and ruffle his curls until he’s swatting his hand away with a trademark scowl.

Bilbo finishes fixing the top button on his waistcoat, looks up, glances at Sweetie, and blinks.

“Oh,” he says, and steps aside with a wry grimace. “I suppose I won’t be winning the prize for my tomatoes this year.”

Dwalin inhales deeply.

“Bilbo Baggins of the Shire,” he begins, making sure to speak as loudly and clearly as possible so his voice can carry as far as possible. He sees Bilbo startle, his hands instinctively flying to his belt, and behind them, the whispers burst into interested mumbling that sounds a lot like the bees that Beorn kept in his garden. “Son of Belladonna Took and Bungo Baggins, master of Bag-End, friend of Dwarves, Men and Elves alike; I come to you on this morn on behest of my King, Thorin II Oakenshield, son of Thraìn, son of Thròr, ruler of Erebor and direct descendant of the line of Durin.”

“ _Dwalin_ ,” Bilbo hisses through clenched teeth, his hands balling into fists. The voices behind them are growing louder, and Dwalin doesn’t have to turn to know that a crowd is beginning to assimilate on the road. He bites back a grin at Bilbo’s blatant annoyance.

“Countless times have you, o brave but gentle soul, saved the lives of the King and his kin on the course of the journey that has gone down in history as an example of Dwarven resilience and loyalty to their homeland,” Dwalin intones deeply, crossing his arms behind his back when Bilbo makes an aborted attempt to seize his forearm and drag him aside. “Your valour has been insurmountable, your presence at the King’s side indispensable.”

“Oh, Yavanna,” Bilbo whimpers. “I am going to _kill_ him.”

“I come here today as naught but a messenger, carrying to you a suit he makes with all the affections in his heart,” Dwalin announces, his face breaking out into a smile.

“I am begging you to _shut up_ ,” Bilbo groans, clutching the edge of the doorframe and leaning his weight heavily on it. “ _Dwalin_.”

“The King of Erebor wishes to marry you, Bilbo Baggins of the Shire, and requests your acceptance of his marriage proposal and investiture as the Royal Consort of the seventh Dwarven Kingdom of Middle Earth,” Dwalin says. “Should you choose to agree, I, Dwalin, son of Fundin, Captain of the Royal Guard, will accompany you back to where His Majesty awaits your answer with earnest longing and a love that shall encompass all of eternity, for your tale to be noted as a reminder of prosperity and affections flourishing in the face of all adversity in the books of old.”

Bilbo’s face drops into his palm with a resounding smack. Dwalin thinks he hears someone muffle a scream.

“Are you done?” He finally asks, peeking out carefully from between his fingers, eyes narrowed shrewdly in suspicion. “Or is there more where that came from?”

“No, that’s all Balin wrote, don’t worry,” Dwalin reassures him, his voice dropping back into his normal timbre. He pats Bilbo on the head affectionately, and grins when the scowl returns in full force. “I had plenty of time to memorize that on the road.”

“Oh, I can tell,” Bilbo hums, and then chuckles. It’s a nervous, frustrated little sound, and he gestures flamboyantly to the interior of his house. “Come in before my relatives slip inside the house with you.”

“How come I don’t get a hug?” Dwalin grumbles as he steps inside, gazing around at the strangely familiar low ceilings and the distinct wooden smell of old furniture. He takes off his cloak as the door shuts behind him with a click and drops it along Bilbo’s proffered forearm, working out the crick in his neck with a groan.

“You just asked me to marry your king,” Bilbo points out with a snort, draping the cloak over a neat stand by the door. He makes a shooing motion with his hands, ushering Dwalin along to what he sincerely hopes is the kitchen. “I think a bit of disorientation is in order.”

Bag-End is still as inviting as he remembers. There are paintings hung along the walls, polished to a shine, most definitely the works of some old relatives instead of a commissioned artist; dried flowers pressed carefully and propped up behind glass windows, a few odd scribbles and wonky drawings that could very well have been from Bilbo’s own childhood. The hallways still branch out in that terribly distracting manner, looping around and circling back into each other, but they don’t seem very daunting now in the patches of sunlight that innocently filter in through circular windows mounted at short distances. There are knick-knacks and trinkets sitting on tops of tables and desks; he even catches sight of some fine blue pottery resting peacefully behind a glass cabinet, and he’s certain this was the one Bilbo almost carved out the eyes of the rowdy pair of princes for.

Fortunately going along with his expectations, Bilbo leads him into the kitchen which looks radically different in the light of a morning that’s moving steadily towards midday. The warm flickering candlelight and comely edges of shadows are gone, and have been replaced by bright red flowers bundled in a jar on the table and the bright haze of the sun. The whole room glows with a sort of illusionary ripple, almost as if it’s a part of a different reality, and Dwalin feels like an intruder with his armour and his axes and his tattoos in a little corner of the world where there is nothing but the comfort of a familiar hearth for weary and lost travellers.

“Huh,” Dwalin says, and shakes his head to dispel the thought. This is the home of Bilbo Baggins, his friend, and alright, maybe he turned up unannounced again, but at least they’re friends now. That has got to count for something. “Say, if it was Thorin instead of me, there at the door, what would you have done?”

Bilbo raises an eyebrow at him from where he’s putting a kettle on the stove. “I would have invited him inside, same as you?”

“What if he asked you to marry him right there and then?”

“Well,” Bilbo starts, and then frowns, deep in thought. “I would have let him finish, then invited him in.”

“You wouldn’t throw himself into his arms as soon as you saw him?”

Bilbo snorts. “Of course not. I’m not a hormonal youngster, for crying out loud.”

“Well, that explains a lot to me about the nature of your relationship, then,” Dwalin sighs, pulling out a chair and sitting down heavily.

Bilbo’s face twists into a strained smile. “He thought it would be romantic, didn’t he?”

The kettle screams, and Bilbo turns away to fish out a pair of mugs from a drawer under the sink. Dwalin settles down loosely, exhaling in quiet relief as he makes to tug off his vambraces and gloves. Bilbo hums a song in the background, soft and absent-minded, something about the moon drinking so much that it fell out of the sky.

“Aren’t you going to ask why he couldn’t come here himself?” Dwalin questions him, reaching to the side to start unbuckling the leather straps of his chestplate. Bilbo gives him a funny smile, looking down at him like he’s just said something incredibly idiotic.

“No, I’m not, he’s a _King_ ,” Bilbo huffs ultimately, placing a steaming mug of tea in front of him. He glares when Dwalin sniffs at the fumes suspiciously. “Drink it, I’m not poisoning you.”

“But you would have liked it if he had come to visit you,” Dwalin points out.

“I would be incredibly happy if any one of you came to visit,” Bilbo answers with a long-suffering sigh, raising his own mug to his mouth. There are little tomatoes painted on his, and, Dwalin notes with some horror, there are carrots stamped along his own mug. “As I am incredibly happy to see _you_ here.”

“But you would’ve been overjoyed if it was Thorin,” Dwalin says.

Bilbo grunts, taking a deep sip. “You just never stop lobbying, do you? _Yes_ , I would have been overjoyed if it was Thorin.”

Dwalin leans back, contented, and takes a drink of the tea. It’s surprisingly refreshing, not overly sweet but still laced with an undercurrent of warm honey. He suppresses a groan of relief as the beverage washes down his throat, and glares when Bilbo hides a smile behind the rim of his mug.

They sit that way in silence for a few minutes, both of them sipping their tea. Finally, Dwalin places the mug back and pulls out a letter from the folds of his jacket.

“What’s this?” Bilbo asks, wrinkling his face as he glances down at the official seal of the King of Erebor. He pulls a half-amused, half-exasperated expression. “Please don’t tell me he put his insignia on a love letter.”

Dwalin sniggers. “I didn’t pry it open for blackmail, if that’s what you’re asking me.”

(He wanted to, _of course_ he wanted to. That’s the way it had always been with them, ever since Dwalin had first ripped his trousers playing while they were dwarflings, and Thorin had laughed so much he almost threw up his lunch. Their little game continued over the decades, spanning all the instances where either one of them had done something incredibly pig-headed or found themselves in an unflattering situation. It had gone from the time Thorin turned up drunk at his father’s council meeting, to when Dwalin had been proposed to in the street by a complete stranger when they had accompanied Thraìn on a diplomatic visit to Moria, to the time Thorin mistook a Dwarven lass in the dark for a man and had to run out of the bedroom with his shirt falling off his shoulders and screaming for Dwalin, who had fallen over in a hacking fit from snorting up his ale too quickly.

So, yes, the opportunity had been beyond tempting, and Dwalin had been willing to slide open the seal the moment the letter was in his hands, but Thorin looked at him from over his desk, where he had been heating the wax.

“You do realize I love him more than any treasure in the world?” He had asked, turning the little container over the candle lazily.

“I sure hope so,” Dwalin had replied. “Or else this will just be a huge flop.”

“And that I want to spend the rest of my life with him?” Thorin had continued, as if he hadn’t heard his answer.

“I had no idea,” Dwalin had deadpanned.

“And that I want to spend the rest of my life doing things to him, as well?”

“ _Ugh_ ,” Dwalin had enunciated.

“To more innocent minds, perhaps,” Thorin had shrugged casually, pressing his ring into the molten wax that he was drizzling over the flap. “I just call it adventurous.”

“Oh Mahal, _shut up_ ,” Dwalin had begged, dropping his face into his hands. “Shut up, already.”

“If you still want to read it, by all means, go ahead,” his friend had offered graciously, sliding the envelope over the table towards him. “I’m not ashamed, or anything. You’ll only get to know me better, I suppose.”

“ _This_ ,” Dwalin had grit out, rising to his feet and pointing his finger right at the King’s smug face, “ _this_ is where I draw the line. Keep your fantasies to yourself, you hyena.”

He had swept up the letter then and stuffed it into his jacket, gagging loudly like a cat coughing up a hairball. With a last glare thrown over his shoulder, he had left the room like a man traumatized, completely missing the satisfied smirk settling upon Thorin’s face.)

Bilbo squints at him. “Well, that doesn’t really bode well for me. Should I be scared?”

“You know what,” Dwalin says. “I think you should be. He looked very—” He pauses, wracking his brain for a word that wouldn’t sound unnecessarily crude to the Hobbit. “— _zealous_ , when he handed it to me.”

“Zealous,” Bilbo repeats flatly. Dwalin nods.

“Well, shit,” Bilbo huffs, and rips it open. “Here goes nothing.”

Dwalin gets up and gathers their empty mugs, carrying them over to the sink when he hears the sliding rustle of the letter being unfolded. He begins to hum a song under his breath, a half-snatched melody he remembers from some dim tavern a long time ago, and begins to rinse out the ceramics.

Behind him, Bilbo makes a funny noise.

“You alright there?” Dwalin asks, turning the mugs over and watching the water drip down the drain. “I’d be happy to fling it out the window, if you want.”

“No, then my relatives will definitely read it,” Bilbo hums, sounding rather distracted. Dwalin shrugs, and reaches for the dishcloth.

“You really didn’t read this, did you?” Bilbo finally asks him, and there’s something quivering in his voice, something suspended and rather curtly repressed, and Dwalin turns around to look at him. Bilbo’s mouth presses into a thin line.

“No,” Dwalin answers again, and then frowns. “Should I have? Is it really that bad?”

“No, no, I don’t think you should have,” Bilbo emphasizes, whipping his head to the sides a little too quickly. “It’s rather personal, you see, and quite detailed.”

Dwalin pretends to hurl. “You don’t want to bloody discuss it with me or something, do you? Because that will be my cue to get the hell out of here. Mahal knows I’ve got so much work to do back home already.”

Bilbo stares at him for a long while, and then seems to come back to himself with a start. He laughs quietly, sighing in what could only be described as fond exasperation, and rises to his feet. “No, you’re absolutely right. Come along, then. I’ll show you to your room and draw up a bath, and then we’ll see about lunch.”

The last thing Dwalin sees before he is ushered fussily along is Bilbo ripping the envelope and its contents to shreds, before tossing it into the fire.

*

See, Dwalin is not a worry-wart, not in the slightest.

He’s always been one to believe in the eventuality of things, someone who’s always propagated the natural order of existence. _If it’s meant to be_ , he has drunkenly boomed over drowsy heads in rowdy taverns over mugs of sizzling ale so many times that he’s lost count, _it will find a way_. He has comforted friends and family alike, telling them over and over that it wasn’t their fault, none of it, that there was nothing more to be done, that if fate chose the outcome herself then there was little them mortals could do to change it. It’s been a source of comfort for him all his life, no matter how meager, knowing that there were always some things beyond his purview, some things which would come to pass no matter what. It made the process of forgiving significantly easier, although the rank taste of memories never really went away.

Seeing Thorin and Bilbo gravitate towards each other had been one of those eventualities, because it felt like something waiting to happen when it finally did. They were drawn to each other, both of them, with thunder and rain and raging winds, eyes constantly seeking the other out, hands and knees and shoulders always touching. They had walked through fire, literally and figuratively, and yes, they might have emerged disoriented and dizzy and slightly smoking at the edges, but they still survived. Their love was furious and reckless and rather insane, living through death and destruction and battle alike, and somewhere down the line, perhaps Dwalin had fooled himself into believing that Thorin’s whirlwind romance would actually work.

Because, in all honesty, it didn’t seem to affect Bilbo all that much, the proposal. He had a whole table ready by the time Dwalin had returned from handing over his pony to the stable master, smiling and teasing him and giving absolutely no indication about the contents of the letter Thorin had sent for him. Dwalin didn’t want to push him, and truthfully speaking, he had kind of been working on the assumption that Bilbo had already agreed to the marriage and just conveniently forgot to tell him in clear words. It was a rather stupid notion, but the whole journey and the idea itself had been stupid, so there was no point in contemplating about it now.

Dwalin had found Bilbo in his study two days after he had arrived, his knuckles merrily rapping against his desk as he looked over a letter on the table. He glanced up when Dwalin had knocked on the open door, and waved him in wordlessly.

“Word from Erebor?” Dwalin had asked, jerking his head towards the letter Bilbo was poring over.

“What? Oh no, no, it’s from Thranduil, actually,” he had replied, grabbing a fresh sheet of paper and giving his quill a feisty twirl. “He’s rather worried about sending Legolas off on a quest alone, you know, only child and all that.”

“What?” Dwalin had repeated, rather blankly. Why was the Elvenking corresponding with their Hobbit about his overprotective parental problems? Wasn’t Legolas over a thousand years old already? Shouldn’t he be as wrinkled as a prune by now?

“I know, he’s being rather silly,” Bilbo had sighed, bending his head as he began to scribble a response. “I don’t think I can blame him, though. He is a father, after all.”

“ _Thranduil._ ”

“I’m sure he’s already talking to Bard about this,” Bilbo had remarked after a while, completely ignoring Dwalin, then snorted. “Though what assistance I can offer Thranduil after _him_ , I really don’t know.”

It had stumped Dwalin, really, thrown him off-kilter, knowing that in all the time since the battle had been won, Bilbo had gone and cultivated meaningful friendships with people like Thranduil and Bard, and was actually talking to them about their _children_. How much correspondence had already been exchanged, what all did Bilbo deem fit to share with his new friends? Tales of their journey perhaps, or the regular occurrences of his peaceful life back in the Shire? The thought always left a bitter taste in his mouth, the idea of these _strangers_ having such a personal insight into Bag-End, but then the more pressing questions started to simmer in his mind.

If Bilbo had been talking quite regularly to Thranduil, why hadn’t he tried to stay in touch with _Thorin_ after he left Erebor?

Dwalin thought of the letter, ripped to pieces and smoldering in the fireplace, and felt slightly ill.

The morning of the fifth day that he had been in the Shire, Dwalin catches Bilbo right when his host is about to take his first tentative sip of tea. He coughs loudly to announce himself, and Bilbo splutters, his mouth gaping open like a fish as he chokes on the drink. Dwalin ignores him, yanking out a cup from the drawer rather harshly and pouring himself some tea from the steaming kettle.

“Well?” Bilbo prompts, after watching Dwalin glare at him rather angrily from across the table. A curve of sunlight dances across his face, and he tries not to think of how much more this suits him rather than the sterile shine of all the gold in the treasury.

“Have you settled on an answer yet?” Dwalin demands, feeling a little annoyed at how blatantly Bilbo is trying to evade the question. “Are you going to marry him?”

Bilbo lets out a pathetic sound, and deflates as all the air rushes out from his lungs in a sad huff. In another situation, the sight would have been hilarious. “Oh, _that_.” He ducks his head, lifting the mug to his mouth swiftly to hide the displeased curve to his face.

“You can’t rip up all his letters forever,” Dwalin points out gruffly, tilting his cup accusingly in Bilbo’s direction. “One day, he’s going to turn up at your door. What will you do then?”

“I don’t know,” Bilbo groans, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I wish I did, but I’m so confused.”

“About what to do?”

“Not really.”

“Well, then, what will you do?”

Bilbo blinks. “Oh, um. I don’t know yet?”

“There is no point running away from this; sooner or later, it will catch up to you,” Dwalin tells him wisely, taking a deep swig from his cup. “You might not make your decision right now, but you’ll have to. He will be waiting, you know that.”

Bilbo says nothing, but tips his head to the side curiously, staring at him, almost assessing, like he’s trying very hard to make sense of what’s being told to him. Dwalin tries not to puff up with pride.

“Look,” he says frankly, setting the tea to the side, and leans forward intently. “Thorin is in love with you, and he wants to marry you. If what I’ve seen on our quest has been any indication, you care dearly for him too. Now if you’d be so kind, you would say yes to him and save us all a whole lot of trouble.”

Bilbo purses his lips; his grip on the handle of his mug (cherry-patterned this time, the red oddly bright) tightens visibly. Dwalin waits.

“Well,” Bilbo finally says, and the breath whooshes out of him in a rather dramatic exhale that would have had Thorin in tears of pride, “if it’s all the same to you, I’d like a few more days. To think over it—things, yes. To think over _things_.”

Dwalin frowns at him. “Well, aren’t you unusually eloquent today.”

“Yes, yes, certainly,” Bilbo begins to babble, and stands from his chair quite abruptly. The screech of it against the wood makes him grit his teeth for a short second, but it’s enough for his host to start waddling away cautiously, eying Dwalin somewhat warily. “Now, I’ve got work to do, so I’ll be in my study. Call for me if you need something, yes?”

“Bilbo?” Dwalin asks him carefully, and watches him push something deeper into his pocket. “Is—is that a letter?”

“Goodness, it’s quite late, I really should go,” Bilbo calls out cheekily, and then disappears down the hallway. Dwalin leaps from his chair, and stumbles after him, extremely surprised with a startling realization dawning upon him with sudden clarity.

“Bilbo, has Thorin been writing to you all this while?”

The echoing slam of a door is his only answer.

*

By the time it’s evening, Dwalin is at his wit’s end and absolutely prepared to embed an axe in the forehead of the next person who comes into his line of sight. Since he’s been sure to stay cooped up in Bag-End the whole time, he hopes it’s Bilbo.

With every minute that passed since their strange encounter in the kitchen, Dwalin has had the most horrifying epiphanies known to mankind. Had Thorin been writing to Bilbo all this time, and he had never replied? Had his friend already tried to employ all potential methods to woo the hobbit, and since all of them had failed, he’d decided to pull his trump card and just ask for Bilbo’s hand in marriage? Was the real reason he sent Dwalin to the Shire his belief that something terrible must have happened to Bilbo, because he hadn’t responded to any of his heartfelt letters over the months that he had been gone? Did Thorin _know_ he was setting himself up for heartbreak, but thought of trying it anyway, the last resolve of a broken man, simply because he realized he had nothing left to lose anymore?

_Oh, you poor thing_ , Dwalin thought to himself, dragging the edge of his whetstone down Grasper’s edge. _You poor, poor thing_.

Dwalin had never suspected Bilbo could be so ruthless, so downright cruel. He had been nothing short of an actual angel on the journey, making sure everyone was alright and keeping an eye out whenever someone slumped into a particularly bad mood, going up to them later and wheedling the problem out of them so he could offer his kindness to soothe the pain. Dwalin had seen him take care of Thorin in his notorious brooding hours, for Mahal’s sake, but this—not responding to him for months, shredding the letters he had written with so much love and affection, tossing away his heart like it meant nothing to him—was something he had never even imagined Bilbo was capable of.

But then again, appearances can be deceptive, and who had taught him that better than their burglar himself? It seemed too vicious a play of fate, that the very person who had dragged Thorin back from the cusp of madness would be the one to kick him back into the abyss. Because there were no two ways about it: Thorin would be devastated, and even if he tried to work his way out of the inevitable slump headed his way, he was far too invested in Bilbo to ever truly get him out of his mind.

This was a terrible, terrible idea.

A knock resonating from the front door jerks Dwalin’s head up and away from where he’s been curled protectively over his weapons. A cheery call of “Mister Baggins, do you want me to keep these on the bench?” rouses Dwalin just enough to place his axes on top of a table and stride to the door.

A young hobbit stands at the steps, and he blinks in unbidden surprise when Dwalin jerks the door open. Bilbo hasn’t emerged from his study all day, even though a spread of lunch had miraculously made its way onto the table while Dwalin had been taking a very quick shower. He hadn’t opened the door even though Dwalin promised to break it down, only shouting back, “Yes, give it a shot, won’t you, because I certainly don’t keep Sting in here with me at all times!”

Needless to say, Dwalin hadn’t broken down the door.

“Can I help you?” Dwalin rumbles, staring down at the boy.

“Oh, well,” he fumbles, tongue rolling around uselessly in his chubby cheeks for a long minute before he shudders, and sticks out a hand. “I’m Jeremy Proudfoot; I live down the road from Bag-End. You must be one of Mister Baggins’ dwarves.”

Dwalin stares at his hand. The boy drops it.

“Anyway,” the hobbit says rather impishly, looked mighty peeved that Dwalin hadn’t greeted him like an old friend, “if you’re here, will you please pass these letters on to him? The mailman dropped them off at our door again.”

Dwalin grunts noncommittally as he reaches out and takes the proffered envelopes. The top one is in an alarming shade of pink, and the handwriting spells out _dearest Bilbo Baggins_ in frilly loops; he shakes his head and shuffles the pile, looking through the sheaves. Most of them seem like invitations or normal conversational letters, though why anyone would write them when they turn up for tea at each other’s place every other day, he doesn’t know.

It’s the last envelope that makes him freeze, the seal of the King of Erebor staring up at him.

Dwalin shoves the other envelopes into the boy’s hands and he lets out a surprised squeal, but Dwalin grips the letter tight in his hands and hears his pulse thrum a furious staccato behind his ears. He is practically vibrating with something that seems suspiciously like rage, although he isn’t really sure who it is directed at. It’s not Thorin, though that lying bastard has apparently been writing to their burglar the entire time and never saw it fit to tell his oldest friend. It’s not Bilbo either, even if the sneaky little shit never mentioned he had received the letters, and not to mention, has probably been feeding them to the cows all this time.

Alright, perhaps he is slightly angry at both of them.

“What is it?” Jeremy quips, practically bouncing on his feet to look at what has got Dwalin in such a predicament. The nosy little thing cranes his neck forward, trying to sneak a peek at the face of the envelope. “Is it from the Sackville-Baggins again? Because I rather thought they had—”

“Alright, _shut up_ ,” Dwalin says, and places a heavy hand on the hobbit lad’s shoulders to keep him still. “Do you deliver letters to Bilbo often?”

“I don’t _deliver_ them,” he grumbles indignantly, looking slightly irritated by Dwalin’s assessment of him as a courier boy. “I just bring them over whenever the mailman from Bree ends up being too lazy to walk a little further down the road and drop them off at Bag-End,” Here he scowls lightly, “which is almost always, if I do say so myself.”

“That means you do deliver them. _No_ , shush,” Dwalin says, when Jeremy opens his mouth to protest vehemently. He holds out the letter, making sure he sees the crown and the seven stars stamped into the wax. “You’ve seen this seal on any letters to him before?”

Jeremy squints at it in the light of the dying sun and for a moment, Dwalin is almost hopeful, but then he straightens up with a proud smile and nods. “Oh, yes, that’s a familiar one! I asked Mister Baggins about it once, and he told me one of his friends is a rather important person, and left it at that.” He grins wolfishly up at Dwalin, whose face is steadily souring. “Why, is it from that King of yours, the one who wants to marry him?”

Dwalin inhales deeply. “And just how often,” he finds himself saying, “do these letters from his friend come to him?”

Jeremy leans back, a little surprised at Dwalin’s tone. “Why, I’d say every few weeks with the shipment sent down the roads, there’s one of these little buggers showing up stuffed under our door! Mother is always a bit disgruntled, really, but then who wouldn’t—”

Dwalin doesn’t stop to thank him or anything; he swivels on his heel with all the wrath of a man wronged (backstabbed, really, those lying little _snot-heads_ ) and seethes his way back inside the house. He bellows out a loud, “Bilbo Baggins, you step out here _right now_!”, only belatedly realizing how much he sounds like his dearly departed mother. He quickly drops his hands from where he’d subconsciously placed them on his hips, and slams the door shut behind him with a well-placed kick. Dwalin hears a loud yelp from the outside, and hopes no fingers were accidentally chopped off in his tirade.

Apparently, there was something quite vindictive in his tone, for Bilbo finally pokes his head out through the door of his study. “Yes?” He hedges, his face twisted into an awkward grimace from making sure the rest of his body is way out of reach.

Dwalin flings the letters down onto the top of the nearest table. A blue envelope inviting Bilbo to Rosemary Bracegirdle’s coming-of-age skids alarmingly close to the edge, almost toppling over a carefully placed acorn. He looks curiously at it for a moment, before he shakes his head and points at Bilbo.

“Explain yourself,” Dwalin thunders.

Bilbo steps out tentatively, still walking on eggshells, but as soon as he glances at Thorin’s letter, his shoulders slump visibly in what can only be described as instant relief. “Oh, thank Yavanna, I thought the mail got lost again.”

Dwalin thrusts the envelope into Bilbo’s face. “Your courier boy just told me Thorin’s been writing to you ever since you got back here.”

“He’s not a courier boy,” Bilbo instantly shoots back, but takes the letter from his hands. The envelope is a sad little thing now, floppy and listless from having the life squeezed out of it in Dwalin’s fist. “But yes, he has been writing to me since I left Erebor.”

“Why didn’t you ever write back?” Dwalin demands, indignation swelling within him on behalf of his friend. Bilbo just stares up at him, dressed in a striped green dressing gown and fuzzy pajamas underneath, and purses his mouth. “He has been waiting to hear from you for _months_ , Bilbo! Is that what you did to all of them, ripped and shredded and thrown to the fire? Because if that is, I am very disappointed in you, and—”

“I wrote back,” Bilbo says, and starts to tear open the letter.

Dwalin pauses, his hands hovering in the air in the middle of an expressive explanation of how terribly the young man in front of him has let him down. “ _What_?”

“I wrote back,” Bilbo repeats, simple and direct. “For every letter he sent, by mail or by those blasted ravens of his, I wrote back. Even sent a few on my own, _unprompted_.” He scowls. “What a bloody menace; you’d really expect birds who know how to speak to not leave their droppings in my garden.”

Dwalin’s back in that embarrassing state of mind. “You wrote back?”

“And if you must know,” Bilbo continues with the ignorant ease of one who doesn’t know just what their words are doing to the person standing in front of them, “ _yes_ , I knew he wanted to marry me, because he asked me himself the day before I left Erebor.”

Dwalin’s jaw drops open. Bilbo pulls a sympathetic face, and reaches out to close it.

“And now that we’re on the topic itself,” he goes on, straightening out the letter and placing the envelope back in a characteristically fond manner on top of a rather hideous looking vase at the table, “I said yes four months ago.”

Bilbo’s eyes scan the letter rapidly, darting back and forth as he reads the words Thorin wrote to him. He smiles, an amused and exasperated smile, and folds the letter.

“Do you want to sit down?” He asks Dwalin kindly. “I think you’re going to throw up.”

“I think so, too,” Dwalin hears himself say from far-off. His voice sounds tinny.

“Alright, so here’s the thing,” Bilbo says, and sits down in front of him after he’s placed the kettle on the stove.

“Yes, the thing,” Dwalin nods. “Tell me the thing.”

Bilbo looks at him like he’s lost his mind. Dwalin doesn’t care. “So, the bottom line is, yes, I knew Thorin wanted to marry me. And yes, I agreed. And yes, I came back to the Shire because there was a lot of work to be done at Erebor and unfinished business to wrap up here to worry about things like marriage and ceremonies. And yes, I was always planning on going back to Erebor, to him and to all of you.”

“He asked you to marry him?”

“He asked me to marry him.”

“And you said yes.”

“And I said yes.”

“And here I am.”

“And here you are.”

The kettle screams. Dwalin wants to scream, too.

Bilbo gets up to pour out the tea into the waiting mugs. He makes sure to hand him the one with the carrots again. “I must admit, I was terribly surprised to see you here, that too announcing the proposal when we’d already gone through the first few legal briefings with Balin.”

Dwalin feels a delirious laugh bubbling up his stomach. “You’re telling me my brother was in on this, too?”

Bilbo winces. He toys with the edge of the mug. “Well, yes. He was the notary for the engagement.”

“The _engagement_.”

“Oh, don’t worry, it was a very hush-hush affair,” Bilbo tells him in what he’s clearly hoping is a comforting voice, and reaches out to pat his hand. “It was rather spur-of-the-moment, seeing how it was the middle of the night, and Balin was the only one of the Company we knew would be awake at that time.”

“I’m the Captain of the Royal Guard, I _never_ sleep!” Dwalin explodes, taking some pleasure in the way Bilbo’s eyes widen (he stomps down the part of his brain that tells him it’s with sympathy, not fear; he still wants to hold onto the last shreds of his dignity). He leans back to look at him properly, and cocks an eyebrow. “What were you two doing together in the middle of the night, anyway?”

“Nothing indecent, thank you very much, I’d rather shove Thorin down a staircase than do anything of that sort before we get married,” Bilbo sniffs, holding his nose in the air.

Dwalin sniggers. “Well, at least something’s going right for me.”

“For the most part, I suppose,” Bilbo says carefully, and immediately raises his mug to take a deep sip. Dwalin moans in agony.

“Why? _Why_ did you have to tell me that? Oh Mahal,” he groans, dropping his head into his palms. His voice comes out muffled when he speaks. “I hate the two of you so much.”

“No, you don’t,” Bilbo chuckles, petting his head. He makes a delighted sound as he peers closely at his tattoos. “Well, aren’t these just beautiful. No, Dwalin, you love us, which is why you travelled halfway across Middle Earth just to make sure your friend wasn’t whining too much.”

“Thorin made me,” he mumbles, feeling petulant and extremely foolish, and Bilbo croons as he continues to pat him on his head.

Bilbo snorts. “Oh please, as if any one of us ever actually listens to what he says. No, you came here out of the sheer goodness of your heart.”

“ _Ugh_ ,” Dwalin grunts and straightens up again. Bilbo is smiling at him, and he narrows his eyes. “Why did you burn the letter?”

“Because he asked me to,” Bilbo sighs, mildly annoyed but also looking exceedingly amused despite himself. “He wrote it clearly, underlined it thrice, just to make sure you wouldn’t get a hold of it after I was done.”

“That’s excessive, even for Thorin,” Dwalin muses, and curls his hands around the warmth of the painted carrots. “Why would he send me all the way here, just to ask you something you had already agreed to?”

Bilbo looks at him, something that looks disgustingly like affection brimming in his eyes. “You said it yourself, you never sleep. You haven’t rested a minute since Erebor was reclaimed, Dwalin. We’ve all been worried sick about you, and Thorin and your brother thought it was a good idea to get you out of there for something they knew you’d never refuse so you could get some fresh air, a good night’s sleep, some bloody excellent food.” He raises a brow, as if challenging Dwalin to refute that claim.

“Well,” Dwalin says. “The food has been bloody excellent.”

Their burglar tips his head back and laughs, that same chiming sound that he’s missed so much in all the while he was gone, and that he’s so pleased to hear again now that he’s here. “I’ve actually finished packing up my study in this time, you know,” he tells Dwalin with a meaningful nod, still grinning. “If you can put up with me for a week more, I’ll finish everything and we can set off back home.”

_Home_.

“I’ll have to put up with you for the rest of my life, considering how you’re marrying my friend,” Dwalin grouches, faux-irritated. “I think it will be good practice.”

“Oh yes,” Bilbo rolls his eyes dramatically as he rises to his feet. “Because _I’m_ the one who snores loud enough to make my host’s ears bleed.”

Dwalin follows him, draining the last of his tea and placing the mug by the sink. “You’re awfully rude, Your Majesty. You kiss your husband with that mouth?”

Bilbo slaps him with the wet dishcloth. “It’s _him_ you’re worried about?”

“You should be, too,” he answers. “For all you know, as soon as we get back to Erebor, you’ll become a widower even before you get the chance to be married. I’m going to hunt down your fiancé like the pig that he is.”

“Yes, I’m sure he’s waiting for you to come back,” Bilbo tells him, and then glances up at his face. In the last light of the sun, his face looks haloed in a wash of red, his hair crystalline and skin like marble. He looks _beautiful_ , and the surge of affection for this wonderful little creature that will soon become the most powerful Consort in history is suddenly too much for Dwalin. “You’re the best friend Thorin could have ever had; you know that, don’t you?”

“Shut up,” Dwalin mutters, his voice cracking as his throat closes up on a rather inconvenient whim. He scoops up a handful of water and flings it into their burglar’s face. “I’m going to get my axes.”

As he makes his hasty escape down the hall, trying to hide the wetness in his eyes, Bilbo’s laughter echoes pleasantly around him.

**Author's Note:**

> i will probably write a sequel to this, one where i'll work on all the letters that were exchanged in this fic. does that sound good? :/  
> talk to me! let me know what you thought of it! thanks for reading, i love you!


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